eCommerce site search is a simple trick to help your customers find the right product on your site. The search experience is a driving force that brings customers back to your site. It is a door for your customers to explore your products and access them right at the moment. But unfortunately, the door mostly remains closed.
Are you confused?
Well, the eCommerce site search statistics report rounds up that up to 30% of consumers use internal site search bars to find the products rather than browsing the entire list. But, in most cases, 72% of sites completely fail in meeting search expectations.
How Important is Internal Site Search for an eCommerce Site?
An optimized eCommerce site search bar is 2-3 times more likely to convert. Every content-based site should explore the potential of an internal site search bar to help customers find the relevant result easily.
What if your customer searches for a product and it shows “no result found.” You are likely to gain bounce rates. So optimizing your eCommerce site search bar to showcase relevant and suggestive results is imperative to retain customers.
Here are some crucial benefits of implementing an eCommerce site search bar on your website:
Eases Consumer Journey
People who use site search are in the late-stage buying mode. A user-friendly site search bar is one of the integral keys to interact with your customers and provide them exact results to boost their purchase decisions. If your site has too many products, it might confuse your customers and delay purchase decisions. Boosting searchability reduces the extra effort and time customers need in discovering the product they are looking for. Moreover, it helps you get repeat customers and retention rates if optimized in the right way.
Amplifies Your Revenue
There are no shortcuts to boost profit. Developing a user-friendly site and navigating users’ journeys are the only way to skyrocket your revenue. Customers have a lot of options. The nooks and crannies of the digital world are brimming with online stores. Unique services and standards are crucial to stand out in the market. If your customers can’t find out what they exactly want, then they are likely to bounce back and reach out to your competitors, ultimately draining your revenue.
Your onsite-search capability plays a significant role in pushing your revenue stream. If your customer gets confused seeing the product collections on your site, providing a universal search bar will help them filter their search and get their hands on the specific products they are searching for. So, easy searchability is a factor that can make and break your revenue.
Help to Boost Competitiveness
Though many brands have implemented on-site search bars, most of the time, it misaligns with users’ search preferences and behavior. A site search bar is a search box that influences customers’ purchase decisions. Customers return to sites that provide them with seamless services. Unhindered customer service is the key to stay relevant and boost competitiveness. It’s not just enough to facilitate an on-site search box! Implement the best eCommerce site search practices to increase your visibility, relevance, and reliability.
Best eCommerce Site Search Practices to Drive Conversion
According to a study conducted by Baymard Institute ran a study, customers search preferences can be categorized as:
- Exact Search
- Product Specific search
- Problem specific Search
- Content-based Search
So, every eCommerce site needs a search box and filter that matches customers’ unique preferences. Let’s see some of the best practices you can implement to boost eCommerce site search:
1. Focus on need-Based Consumers
Your eCommerce success depends upon how quickly you respond to your customers. Customers are market-shapers. Understanding their behaviors and shopping pattern is crucial to align your search box to match their preferences. There are customers who randomly browse your site. And there are also customers who search for specific products. If customers with a specific interest find it difficult to narrow down the search or if you fail in providing the exact result, it might increase the bouncing rate.
The boom in service journalism has made customers more informed and aware of changing markets and products. Today’s customers demand accuracy, speed, and quality-assured services. They visit your site expecting concrete results. So, you need a robust eCommerce power suit to optimize your website content to match users’ requirements.
2. Curate relevant and organized Data
Solid product data is a significant element of an eCommerce website. Enriching product descriptions, accurate product titles with relevant keywords are elements to boost your searchability. And for that, you need control over data governance.
Incorporating a PIM solution into your Content Management System (CMS) can help you collect, organize and distribute data to customers with specific interests. A PIM solution optimizes your product data and delivers an enhanced product experience through on-site searchability.
Read More: PIM-Best Practices For Product Information Management
3. Integrate Autocomplete & Auto-suggest Facility
Autocomplete helps your customers branch out from unspecific searches and put them into a more specific path that drives conversion. It has the potential to generate desire in the minds of casual visitors. Also, it reduces time in customers filling the box, thus reducing the conversion time.
Moreover, your customers belong to different demographics. Some may not be thorough with the spelling, and some may not be knowing the exact word to define the product they are looking for. In such cases, predictive suggestions and small thumbnail images help you take your customers to the right product page.
4. Narrow Search Results through Filters
Too many results spoil the game! So give your customers relevant filters to narrow down the search. Price, size, color, categories, popularity are some of the filters you can use to navigate customers through relevant search results. Preparing an exhaustive list of product attributes is a difficult task. You need to find out what information customers are likely to pursue during their search. Also, use words that your customers are likely to use. This will help you add value throughout the users’ journey.
5. Optimize eCommerce Websites for Voice Search
On-site voice assistance is revolutionizing the eCommerce landscape by leveraging product discoverability. Statistics claim 72% of consumers have already used voice assistance to conduct specific searches. Complementing your on-site search box using a voice search feature augments customer experience. The hands-free quality of eCommerce on-site voice search helps brands avoid typing long-tail keywords and multi-task.
6. Create Informative Landing Pages
On-site search gives you insight into what your customers love to see in your store. Based on the data collected through on-site search, you can create dedicated landing pages that are more likely to convert. Add additional features and specifications to make it more informative. On-site search is not just a search box. It is also a better hack to track users’ interests and how users interact with your website.
7. Enrich ‘No Results Page’ with Meaningful Content
What if the products customers searching for are not available in your store or out of stock? Showing a no result page won’t do any good. And it may negatively affect the brand itself. So, make your no result page meaningful by adding relevant content or product descriptions that interest customers.
Sometimes a no result page may appear when the search box doesn’t understand users’ queries. A product might have different names in different regions or locations. So always try to include widely used and common keywords to reduce the no result page.
Suggested Reading: How to Write a Killer eCommerce Product Description- 10 Practical Tips
8. Optimize your site for Mobile Users
A Forrester survey report predicts that retail mobile commerce will grow at an annualized rate of 17% until 2024. More than half of today’s generation are mobile users. So optimizing your website for mobile users is imperative to drive conversion. Typing on the mobile can be difficult at times. Even a slight spelling error may lead customers to no result page. So, ensure your site search box is easy to find and use on mobile devices.
Top 4 eCommerce Site Search Tool
1. Search Node
Search Node is a scalable site search optimization tool that helps to provide custom solutions through advanced data processing. Search Node has features like relevant matching, automated synonym detection, custom stemming for different languages, and an intelligent analytic report that helps to maximize conversion.
2. Algolia
The dynamic AI-powered search tool Algolia maximizes the speed of search and discovery. It provides customers relevant results within milliseconds. Algolia’s search tool is highly beneficial for large enterprises that are struggling to deliver tailored content experiences.
3. Chorus
Chorus is an open-source site search solution for brands running on the headless platform. Its open-source nature grants complete control over the search by fine-tuning relevant data to match customers’ requirements and search behavior.
4. Doofinder
Doofinder is an advanced eCommerce site search tool for eCommerce sites running on platforms like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, WordPress, Prestashop, and Shopware. Now you can install your search tool in just 5 minutes without any code or programming. The tool offers your search engine advanced functionalities to sell more and improve user experience.
Things to Ask Before Optimizing Your eCommerce Site Search
Is it a custom internal search site or third-party powered?
Depending upon your demands, you can hire a developer to build a custom site search box to cater to tailored content. Or else you can choose a third-party search provider-they can provide you with both hosted pages on a sub-domain and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML).
Does it comprise universal search results or product-specific?
Check if your eCommerce site search comprises entire website content (product specifications and other content-based). Every user has a specific intention. There are target buyers who might be visiting your site to buy a product. And there might be first-time visitors who intend to collect information.
Is it manually optimized or automatically adjusted?
Some eCommerce site search boxes need manual maintenance and updates to show relevant and top-selling product content on the top. So check whether your eCommerce site searches support automatic optimization.
Does it provide an autocomplete option and filtered search results?
Make sure your on-site search box inculcates javaScript to autocomplete phrases your visitors’ type. And check whether it helps customers refine their searches through relevant filters.
Amplify Your eCommerce Site Search to Drive Customer Experience
Giving your customers more control over the results is crucial to keep them connected to you. The value of site search can’t be overlooked when it comes to eCommerce website optimization. Organizing the product content and entire website to match with the customers’ query is not a difficult task anymore. PIM solutions provide brands a one-stop solution to boost data governance and contextualize data to enhance accuracy and relevance in search results.
DCKAP PIM offers flexible product information DCKAP PIM and eCommerce best practices & solutions, reach out to us.
